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We are happy to announce that we received many high quality application from a wide range of professional and academic fields. We are now processing these; we expect to notify all applicants of their application results by 1st June 2018.

Applications for membership of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) are now open! Application forms may be accessed via the RSE Website here (you will have to register / log in to apply). A separate form for use only by applicants applying through our 'At-Risk Academic and Refugees' membership scheme may be found here. This year’s application deadline is 14 February 2018.

For information about the application process and membership criteria, please visit the "Applying to Join YAS" page or download the 2016 Recruitment Leaflet.

YAS members Silvia Paracchini and Paul Hoskisson are spending a week in Westminster, shadowing parliamentarians and civil servants at the House of Commons. The week (04 – 07 December) is part of a unique pairing scheme run by the Royal Society – the UK’s national academy of science, with support from the Government Science & Engineering (GSE) profession. During their visit Silvia is shadowing Stephen Gethins MP and Paul is shadowing Javier Igartua, an economic advisor to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs. As well as attending seminars and panel discussions about how evidence is used in policy making, Silvia and Paul will also attend a mock Select Committee.

The visit provides scientists with a behind the scenes insight into how policy is formed and how research can be used to make evidence based decisions. It also gives parliamentarians and civil servants the opportunity to investigate the science behind their decisions and improve their access to scientific evidence.

Members of the Young Academy of Scotland have released a position statement on Brexit. The statement calls on the UK Government to "prioritise maintaining the significant gains from the UK's membership of the European Union."

You can read the full statement, For a Progressive and Open Society, here.

In December 2015, the Arts, Humanities & Society Working Group of the Young Academy of Scotland was awarded funding to deliver a project tackling one of the key global issues, not just of our time, but of all history – the movement of peoples fleeing war, persecution, famine and other dangers.

This is a huge global issue, with social, political, economic and cultural ramifications, but the group wanted to make whatever contribution it could, however small. Inspired by the recent arrival of a small group of Syrian refugees in Scotland, the group thought about how they, and other refugees, might best be supported into their new lives in this country. As arts, humanities and social science scholars we were aware of the long history of refugees in Scotland, and so the project developed video exploring the ‘Silent History’ of refugees in Scotland, with an accompanying pack of school resources, aimed at 8-11+ year olds.

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Dr Paul Chapman is Deputy Director of the Digital Design Studio (DDS) at the Glasgow School of Art where he has worked for the past two years. The DDS is a postgraduate research and commercial centre based in the Digital Media Quarter in Glasgow housing state of the art virtual reality, graphics and sound laboratories. Previously Paul was Director of the Hull Immersive Visualization Centre and spent several years working as an offshore engineer in the oil, gas and diamond mining industries.